Improving Your Space

There are a variety of ways a girl can treat herself to something special, from huge gifts to herself like a weekend at the spa or a two week vacation in Venice to small concessions to personal happiness like a new shampoo fragrance or a bar of chocolate. Every girl needs to treat herself now and then and a great way to do so is to improve your space. Whether it involves drawing up entirely new house plans for a walk-in-closet addition or adding some inspirational cutouts to your office cubicle walls, improving your space is not only fun but practical, since the better you feel about where you are the more work you'll get done. For some ideas on improvements, read on.

If you live in a small apartment and you'd like to treat yourself to more space, you don't necessarily have to start looking through the Toronto loft listings for a new place. You can make your existing apartment look bigger by paring down the amount of furniture you have or putting up some mirrors. Minimalist wall decor also opens up the place, so if you're feeling hemmed in try painting the walls a lighter color and hanging one or two smaller pieces instead of a whole gallery worth of artwork.

Cubicles and other small office workspaces seem completely hopeless. Their bland fabric walls and unimaginative metal desks were engineered to be both cheap and to have the required tools for electronic circuit design or spreadsheet processing or whatever your job is, not for aesthetic appeal. However, you'd be surprised how much a few desk accessories and some colorful pin-up artwork can brighten it up. For an extra touch of life, try a hardy potted plant that can stand the fluorescent lighting and won't wilt on weekends, like cactus or aloe.

Treating your pets to stylish habitat additions can also be a way of improving your space. While your fish may only need a square box full of water to survive, they'll be happier in a tank with variable aquarium lighting, gently waving plants, and tank decorations with lots of little hidey holes. Not only that, but the additions will make your room look better. Aquariums can become a beautiful focal point for the room if done tastefully.

Even if you're living in a controlled environment like a dorm room or one of the condos downtown Toronto has so many of and are forbidden to paint, knock down walls, or even use nails, there are space improving options available to you. Many stores carry re-usable stick-on wall artwork that won't damage your apartment's paint and can be removed when you leave. If overhead lighting can't be installed or replaced, use accent lighting on end tables or funky floor lamps. You can cover ugly flooring will roll-up carpeting and hang artwork with special velcro strips or stick-on hooks that don't pierce the walls. You can even make a room that was formally full of a crib and baby feeding set look hip and modern with easy additions like these.

Whatever the space, you can add personal touches that will make your place feel more like home.